Vusumuzi Dube
Fairness Moyana in Hwange
OVER 15 artistes from across the five districts of Matabeleland North are expected to perform at the inaugural provincial music gala as part of celebrating arts and culture in the province during this year’s Shangano Arts Festival.
The festival is set to take place at the Hwange Colliery gardens on Saturday, with the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Sport, Arts, Recreational and Culture, who is also former National Arts Council director, Mr Nicholas Moyo expected to be the guest of honour.
Sungura sensation, DT Bio Mudimba is billed to headline the first of its kind gala with hits, Kujatajata and Mama atata set to awaken the sleepy mining town. Internationally acclaimed poet, Obert Dube and rising Mtakagogo are also promising to set the stage on fire with their salvo of poetic art.
Also billed to perform with be traditional outfit and Chibuku Road to Fame finalists, Pezhuba Pachena and promising local artistes such as Boomslang, Moto Marasha and Mzion 7. According to the gala organiser, Shangano Arts Festival director, Mr Petros Ndlovu said the festival, which is on its 17th edition, was focused on creating a platform for talent exposure and development, as well as celebrating the province’s rich cultural diversity.
“Preparations for the Matabeleland North music gala are at an advanced stage and we are expecting more than 15 artistes. The reason we are doing the music gala is simply to expose talent of young people. Apart from having the gala we will also have some discussion and workshops on arts management that is how they should manage their work, marketing using social media and how they should engage the corporate world.
“It’s a capacity building programme that we are doing for the creative artists in Mat North this is why we are calling it “Transformative capacity building programme” so it’s not necessarily just entertainment but also to make sure that these artists are capacitated in terms of the skills and how they should grow in the sector of music,” said Ndlovu.
He said the show was good breeding ground for upcoming artistes as it also served not only for exposure but to develop skills through training workshops. The artistes billed to perform are from Binga, Victoria Falls, Tsholotsho, Umguza, Lupane and Hwange. Ndlovu said the platform also afforded upcoming artistes with possible collaborations with established artistes such as DT Bio Mudimba and Dube.
“This is a big festival and platform for the young upcoming artists in the province to showcase their talent and network as well as to learn but most importantly we want these artists to brand with likes of Bio and Obert so they can create some collaborations in which they can assist each other as part of growing the industry.”
The festival continues to grow with more artistes from the region participating and exhibiting their skills while receiving mentorship during the course of the annual event. However, Ndlovu said though the creative sector was doing well in the region there were still dogged by inadequate funding to reach out to as many promising artistes.
Online Reporter